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Baby steps in recovery of TFC's top prospect

In the daily life of a professional soccer player, this is about as routine as it gets: a warm-up in which you pass the ball to a teammate and then make a short sprint after it.

Toronto FC striker O'Brian White gets his first touches of the ball since blowing out his knee seven months before during a team workout on May 26, 2009. Dwayne De Rosario, right, provides the resistance. (CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Daniel GirardSports Reporter

Thu., May 28, 2009

In the daily life of a professional soccer player, this is about as routine as it gets: a warm-up in which you pass the ball to a teammate and then make a short sprint after it.

But for Scarborough's O'Brian White, that simple drill, performed on a blustery day this week in a stadium empty save for a few reporters on the sidelines and some seagulls circling overhead, marked the most important step yet on his long journey back from a devastating knee injury to the lineup of Toronto FC.

"It felt good," the 23-year-old striker said of his first touch of a ball in practice with teammates since tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament in an October game with the University of Connecticut Huskies.

"I'm getting back into my old self," said White, a 6-foot-1, 175-pound graduate of Lester B. Pearson Collegiate in the Malvern area.

That old self was nothing short of a scoring sensation. As a junior at UConn, White topped Division I with 23 goals in leading the Huskies to a 20-3-1 record and the quarter-finals of the NCCA tournament. He won the Missouri Athletic Club's Hermann Trophy, soccer's equivalent of the Heisman, and was also named Soccer America's player of the year for 2007.

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Rather than leave school early to become a top choice in the Major League Soccer SuperDraft or try his luck in Europe, White talked it over with his parents and decided to stay to become the first in his family to complete a four-year degree.

After scoring six goals in 14 games to start 2008, White hurt his knee. Despite that, he was still named Big East offensive player of the year.

While calling it "unfortunate" that he got hurt, White insists staying to complete his sociology degree is "something I'll never regret."

"I've tried to turn a negative into a positive," White said of the injury, which meant other teams passed him over before Toronto took him with its second pick, fourth overall, in January's MLS draft. "I've got a chance to play at home in front of all my family and friends."

"The kid's a home run," Reid said yesterday from Storrs, Conn. "He's effective. He's fast. He's athletic. He's got good feet. He likes to go to goal.

"Once he recovers from the knee he's going to put a smile on a lot of people's faces and make Mo look smart for picking him," he added.

White, a native of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, who moved to Canada with his mother at age 16, is still at least a few weeks away from even suiting up for a reserve team game. But after this week's resumption of light ball work with teammates, he's making his first regular-season road trip with TFC, beginning tomorrow when the team leaves for a Saturday MLS game at Houston and Tuesday's Nutrilite Canadian Championship game at Vancouver.

Previously, White has stayed home and worked out with assistant athletic trainer Shawn Jeffers.

Travelling means White will not only be practising every day with the team but likely doing a little more work because, in both cities, they will using grass fields.

"It's exciting," White said, flashing a huge smile. "You don't want to keep running by yourself, so whenever you get a chance to play with the ball and run with the guys you've got to enjoy it."

White has another visit to his surgeon planned for June 10 before it's determined how soon he might make his long-awaited debut.

Even though White "is going to help us massively," Johnston said it's crucial he not be rushed.

"We can't risk the kid," said Johnston, who likens White to another of his draft choices, American teenager Jozy Altidore, who now plays in Spain after being selected in the 2006 SuperDraft when the current TFC boss was with New York.

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